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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854542">Agora</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin'>lirin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Now You See Me (Movies), White Collar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Coffee Shops, Crossover, Gen, Magic Tricks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:35:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,392</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854542</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal wants to shake up his tracking data. Atlas wants to flirt with the waitress. And Henley really doesn't want to be the magician's assistant anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Agora</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The coffee shop's name was Agora. Neal was pretty sure he'd never set foot in it before, which only went to show just how many coffee shops there were in a two mile radius of Manhattan. And that wasn't counting Starbucks, either. Starbucks was where people went when they needed caffeine and weren't picky, or when they needed an armful of disposable coffee cups as a prop for tailgating their way through a door. As for where people went when they wanted <em>real</em> coffee—well, mostly Neal went to June's patio for that. But every once in a while, a man thought that the people who were tracking his every move through his ankle bracelet needed a reminder that his movements were prone to extend beyond his usual haunts to all sorts of places he'd never been before, without it being any reason for them to be concerned. And so: Agora.</p><p>Neal walked up to the counter and waited for someone to come over to take his order. Agora looked like most coffee shops: job recruiters and MLM hucksters having one-on-one conversations at the tables dotted across the room, college students and aspiring writers at all the tables along the left wall where the outlets must be. There were a few people just sitting and drinking their coffee, of course. And at one of the tables near the back, someone was doing card tricks. As Neal watched, a woman he assumed must be his missing server (her shirt was the same color as the store's facade) peeled herself away and headed over to the counter. "Sorry about the wait," she told Neal as she pressed a few buttons on the cash register. "What can I get for you?"</p><p>"Not a problem," Neal said. "Could I get a flat white?" He watched her punch the order into the register. "What kind of card tricks was that guy doing?" he added. "I couldn't see exactly what he was doing from over here, but he sure seemed to know his way around a deck of cards." Which, at a minimum, merely meant that he knew two shuffles: flashy and flashier. But Neal didn't think a guy would look that comfortable with a deck without a bit more knowledge. And with nothing more interesting to do at Agora, he figured he might as well stick his nose in.</p><p>The waitress was nodding enthusiastically. "Yeah, it was really cool!" she said. "He had me pick a card, and then he showed me which one it was and I have <em>no</em> idea how. And then he did it again, and this time it was in my pocket! And—but really, it's so much cooler when you see it. Come on, let's see if he'll show you one." She beckoned as she hurried off, and Neal followed. "Mr. Atlas, I found someone else who wants to see what you can do. This is—I'm so sorry, I didn't get your name."</p><p>"That's the one downside to being such a nice coffee shop that you bring people's drinks to their tables instead of calling out their names," Neal said with his third most charming grin. "My name's Nick. Nick Halden."</p><p>"And I'm Lexi," she said.</p><p>"J. Daniel Atlas," the man with the cards said, standing up and holding out a hand for Neal to shake. "Any new friend of my new friend Lexi's is a friend of mine. What do you think, Lexi, should I show him the same one I showed you earlier, or should I change it up?"</p><p>"Do the one with the pocket," she said. "I want to see if I can see how it works now that I know what's going to happen. Or is that something you can only do if you don't announce it beforehand?"</p><p>"No, I think I'm good enough to surprise you even if you know what to expect," Atlas said. He turned back to the table, picked up the deck of cards, and shuffled it. It was a very smooth false shuffle, modified so it would appear normal as Neal and Lexi looked over Atlas's shoulder at the deck, instead of the more common viewpoint where they might be facing him. He followed that up by producing a variety of cards from a variety of places, including Lexi's blouse pocket and the underside of her short bobbed hair, both of which made her giggle. His palming work was impeccable, and so was his deck control. His patter was well practiced, though obviously aimed more at Lexi than Neal. All in all, Neal was sure this guy was no amateur. Which raised the question of what he was doing in a coffee shop in the middle of the day (beyond trying to flirt with the waitress). Using card tricks to lead up to a few friendly wagers was better done in a bar when happy hour was wrapping up and people's inhibitions were lowered. A coffee shop where only two people in the room had shown any interest at all made for a poor stage.</p><p>"Do you do this for a living?" Neal asked while Lexi was away doing waitress things, completely interrupting Atlas's attempt to ask him to touch a card, any card at all in the deck (which Neal was pretty sure would magically turn into the card at the bottom of the deck before he was actually shown the card he'd "touched").</p><p>"I used to," Atlas said. "Now I'm just keeping my hand in. What about you, what do you do?"</p><p>"I'm a security consultant," Neal said. That was approximately half true, which was fair enough since he figured that was approximately the amount of truth Atlas was giving him. "Mostly freelance, a bit of this and that."</p><p>"Flat white for Mr. Halden, cappuccino for Mr. Atlas," Lexi said, returning to their table. "And some scones on the house."</p><p>"Thank you, that's very nice of you," Atlas said. "Here, here's a trick I haven't shown you yet. This one needs a helper. But you and Nick have seen so many of my tricks already, you're starting to pick up some of my secrets. To prove that this trick isn't dependent on any of that but can be done with anybody at all, why don't we pull in somebody completely fresh. That girl who just walked in the door, Lexi, do you want to ask her if maybe she'd want to help us out with a magic trick?"</p><p>Lexi hurried over to the redhead, who didn't take long to convince. Only a few moments later, she was following Lexi back to their table. "This is Henley," Lexi introduced her. "Henley, this is Nick Halden and Daniel Atlas."</p><p>"Nice to meet you," Henley said, with a slight eye roll. If she was going to look this un-thrilled about helping, why had she agreed? Neal knew what the answer would be if he'd been the one performing; he wondered if the same thing was the case here.</p><p>"Nice to meet you, too, Henley," Atlas said, taking a sip of his cappuccino. "Now, there are fifty-two cards in this deck, and I'm going to lay all of them out on the table like this, and you're going to touch one. Not now, wait just a minute, because now I'm going to turn my back." Leaving the cards in four rows on the table, he got up, turned around, and put his hands over his eyes. "Okay, now I want you to touch one of the cards, and I'll tell you which one you touched."</p><p>"I've been in New York two years and I've never seen a trick like this," Henley said tonelessly. She reached out and touched one of the cards.</p><p>"Have you touched a card and did Lexi and Nick both see what it is?"</p><p>"Uh-huh."</p><p>"Okay, now step back so that I won't get any clues from where you're standing. Okay, I'm going to turn around." Atlas took his hands away from his eyes, walked back to the table, and looked down at the cards. He waved his hands above them for a second, and then said, "Your card was the ten of spades." Which, unsurprisingly, was the card Henley had tapped. Neal put one of the blueberry scones Lexi had brought over onto his plate and broke off a piece. It had just the right amount of cinnamon.</p><p>"Wow!" Lexi was saying. "How did you do that? Can I try?"</p><p>"Sure," Atlas said.</p><p>"Actually, if you don't mind," Henley said, "I'd really like to order now. I don't have all day."</p><p>"Oh, right, I'm so sorry," Lexi said. She and Henley walked over to the register.</p><p>"So, can I try the card tapping trick?" Neal asked after a few seconds, taking another bite of scone. "I know you said Lexi and I are pricking up your secrets, but I really have no idea how this one's done." Except that every bit of that statement was a lie, and that was why Atlas was going to say no.</p><p>Atlas smoothly swept the cards back together into a pile and squared up the deck. "I'm afraid not. I just noticed the time, and I really do need to get going pretty soon. And I've been so busy talking, I've probably let my coffee get cold." He snagged the other scone off of the plate and started eating it, as if he didn't think his coffee could get any colder.</p><p>"Okay, my turn to tap a card!" Lexi said, hurrying over. Behind her, Henley was glaring at either Atlas or the cards or the table in general, though Neal was at least pretty sure she wasn't glaring at him.</p><p>"I'm afraid I need to actually drink my coffee and eat this scone, which is delicious by the way, thank you very much. I'm afraid that means no more tricks this afternoon. But if you give me your number, I know a few tricks you haven't seen yet that I could show you later."</p><p>"Can't you at least tell me how you did it?" Lexi asked. "There was nothing on the table, and we all saw that you were looking the other way. But wait...a mirror? But I was here when you got here and there's nowhere you could have put a mirror without my seeing what you were doing. And besides, I'm pretty sure you went straight to this table after you ordered. So how's you do it?"</p><p>"Remember what I've been telling you all afternoon?"</p><p>"Yeah," Lexi said. "The closer you look, the less you see."</p><p>"You were so busy looking at the cards that you didn't pay attention to what else was going on."</p><p>"I don't understand."</p><p>"What he's trying to say," Neal said, "is that Henley is a plant. An accomplice."</p><p>"Oh!" Lexi said, looking miffed. "So you told her to walk in the door just at that time that you wanted to do that trick?"</p><p>"No," Neal said, ignoring Atlas's look of annoyance, "it might be hard to remember the exact timing because there was no reason to attach any importance to it at the time, but actually he didn't start setting up the trick until after Henley had walked in the door."</p><p>"And I just came here for a cup of coffee and to see if Danny was ready to get back to work," Henley said. "I'm not a magician's assistant anymore."</p><p>"I'll get your coffee," Lexi said, hurrying away.</p><p>"Could I get that to go?" Henley called after her.</p><p>"So what sort of work do you do?" Neal asked.</p><p>"That's a trade secret—" Atlas started.</p><p>"We're putting together a show for Vegas," Henley said.</p><p>"A bit bigger than false shuffles and card palming in a café?" Neal asked, leaning back in his chair.</p><p>Henley brightened up. She looked much less annoyed than she had when she'd been playing the assistant. "A lot bigger," she said, and broke a piece off of the scone on Atlas's plate. "We're hoping for it to be sometime next year. You should come see us!"</p><p>"The card tricks are just me being bored on my day off," Atlas added.</p><p>"Half-day off."</p><p>"Half-day off. What we're working on is something truly special. Even you'll be amazed. You said you're a security consultant?"</p><p>"I also said I did this and that," Neal said.</p><p>"Would recognizing sleight of hand be the 'this' or the 'that'?" Atlas asked, putting his cars back in their box.</p><p>"Your choice," Neal said. "I've never really gone in for card tricks, but I played a pretty good game of Three-card Monte back in the day."</p><p>Lexi brought a to-go cup over to Henley, then picked up the scone plate and headed back behind the counter, showing a distinct lack of interest in handing over the phone number Atlas had requested earlier. He looked unbothered by this; after all, at least he'd gotten free scones out of his endeavors. Neal figured that put him one up on Atlas, because he'd gotten an equal amount of the free scones without even having to put on a show.</p><p>"We really should be going," Henley said. "But look for our show next year in Vegas. We haven't quite decided what to call ourselves, but we're leaning towards something about the four horsemen of the apocalypse."</p><p>"Sure." Neal didn't mention that it would be pretty difficult for him to get to Vegas anytime soon, because he figured they were going to have a hard time getting there either. They had decent chops from what he'd seen, but performing at that level would take a lot of luck, too.</p><p>But then, Neal had always believed in making his own luck, and if they had that capability too, then maybe they had a chance. There was one sip left in his coffee cup, and he used it to toast Atlas and Henley as they walked out the door. Maybe he'd even get around to googling them next year, to see whether they'd made it.</p><p>But for now, it was back to the daily grind of helping Peter solve art fraud and bank robberies and other things that those magicians had never had to spend a minute thinking about. And right now, Vegas sounded far more fun. Neal hoped they'd make it there, because he definitely wouldn't.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The card trick with Henley was borrowed from <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AMMDfD_F6_sC&amp;pg=PA110&amp;lpg=PA110&amp;dq=card+tricks+that+need+a+confederate">chapter 7 of Ellis Stanyon's Best Card Tricks</a> (Google Books link).</p><p>The card force that Neal interrupts was <a href="https://rebelmagic.com/card-tricks/forces/">from this website</a>; it's the one entitled "One of the most brilliant card forces I’ve ever seen". (Not having seen very many card forces myself, I can't comment on its relative brilliance, but I think it's pretty cool!)</p><p>And presumably his false shuffle at the beginning is either a Zarrow shuffle or something similar. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK70Hb2RGVE">This tutorial</a> (YouTube link) made me want to learn this shuffle myself!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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